Austin Mayor Steve Adler clarified remarks he made Tuesday about a possible November bond referendum to fund the construction of managed toll lanes on I-35 or a train system.

Hours after making the initial remarks, Adler stressed that the specifics of a transportation-focused bond referendum are not yet determined.

“I hoped that we might end up with a bond election that focuses on mobility. My hope is that it will do something that is regional in nature, especially projects focusing on I-35,” Adler said in an interview Tuesday evening. “I also expressed my belief that, ultimately, on I-35, we need a managed lane. What I don’t know is if the November election will have those issues. There is nothing defined at this point.”

Earlier Tuesday during a luncheon hosted by the Austin Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, Adler touched on City Council’s accomplishments over the past year as well as what he believes the Council’s priorities should be in 2016.

“This year, we can’t spend as much time and effort organizing ourselves…we actually have to focus on the big challenges in this city,” Adler said during the luncheon, broadly identifying affordability and mobility as the two biggest challenges facing Austin. He went on to say that Austinites of the future would remember 2016 as the year when city policy leaders began to tackle these issues in a comprehensive and successful way.

In his remarks about future transportation goals, Adler noted a number of efforts to improve traffic “choke points” in individual neighborhoods and “refinements” to the most dangerous intersections in the city. But the majority of his speech focused on the necessity for I-35 managed toll lanes, which use variable toll rates to try to limit traffic congestion.

“We’re going to do it in a way that I hope has never been done in Austin’s history,” Adler said. “I hope our Proposition 1 in November will be the same one that every taxing entity is putting forward.”

From there, Adler praised managed toll lanes as a potential way to entice traffic-weary and car-bound commuters to switch to public transit options.

“We need a managed lane on I-35,” Adler said. “You will never get people out of their cars and onto a bus if it is caught in traffic. People who are sitting in traffic, watching a bus go by quickly...some of them will be willing to get out of their car and onto the bus.”

If any of this sounds familiar, it's because Adler’s remarks from Tuesday’s luncheon are not the first time he has mentioned a bond-funded project for I-35 and managed toll lanes together.

“The conversation is wide open at this point,” he said, adding, “it would be exciting if everybody in the region had a Proposition 1 that was the same.” One project he is envisioning for that bond proposition is adding dedicated transit lanes to I-35. “As a region, we should be trying to do that,” he said. Adler added that he is also interested in other projects, including, possibly, pedestrian improvements.

“ It wouldn’t surprise me if we weren’t coming to the voters in November with some capital expenditures associated with transportation. We know there have been some proposals with respect to I-35 that include increasing capacity that include putting in managed lanes so that we can have buses traveling at 45 miles per hour regardless of traffic so as to encourage people to get out of their cars, and depressing lanes so that (there is) a visual connection of the east and west sides of I-35. And I think there might be an opportunity to do something regionally in that respect. Why not try for that?”

But according to a statement sent Tuesday evening by Adler’s communications director, Jason Stanford, the specifics of any local I-35 proposal are still to be hammered out.

“It was too early to say whether managed lanes would be a part of the 2016 discussion about I-35. As in, he didn’t attach a timeline to managed lanes either,” Stanford said in a text message. “He’s for them, but he didn’t say they would be part of the bond…but yes on excepting a bond on I-35 in November.”

Adler also tried to clarify comments made during the luncheon about the potential for a mass transit rail system in Austin’s future. During his luncheon remarks, Adler floated the idea of building a "starter" rail line that would not require bonded funds. Such an idea, Adler said, might help convince voters to support a more comprehensive rail system for Austin in the future.

Tuesday evening, Adler said action on rail was unlikely in 2016.

“I don’t hear anybody talking about doing anything rail-related this year,” he said. “If and when we do rail, if we do, it would be a project with a smaller scale, where federal funding would be a greater percentage of the costs.”